


At The End of All Things

by Rellie



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, F/M, Gen, Gore, Violence, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 02:57:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellie/pseuds/Rellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern Day/Zombie Apocalypse AU:</p><p>What would you do to survive?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to this prompt on the J/B forum ficathon...
> 
> #22 AU where Brienne & Jaime are survivors in a zombie apocalypse (could be modern day or some kind of outbreak in Westeros that's causing the dead to rise). Maybe Jaime loses his hand to stop himself from being infected. Brienne could be searching for Arya and/or Sansa after the plague has hit. There are so many possibilities, I'm just convinced Brienne would kick undead ass.
> 
> WARNING: Descriptions of gore

You had ten minutes, she remembered. Renly had told her that… if the bite was on an extremity you had ten minutes before the virus reached the brain.

“Fuck Brienne, get out of here!” Jaime Lannister was yelling at her, wild-eyed, cradling his bleeding hand to his chest but she ignored him, emptying her backpack onto the table. Packets and tins crashed to the floor, scattering on the dusty surface.

Where was it? Where the _hell_ was it?

There!

It wasn’t a bone saw, it was more the regular kind but it was probably strong enough. It would _have_ to be strong enough. With shaking hands she grabbed the rubbing alcohol from the pile on the floor, fumbled the top open and doused the blade.

She never thought she would actually use any of this stuff.

“Give me your hand.”

“What…”

“Your hand NOW, Lannister!”

She watched as Jaime registered the saw in her hand, eyes widening.

“You’re going to…” he trailed off, suddenly deathly pale underneath the grime.

Brienne nodded firmly, trying to appear surer about this than she actually was. The hand that held the saw was still stubbornly shaking though, however much she tried to stop it.

After a momentary hesitation he pulled his tattered sleeve away from the bitten hand and laid it on the table. This had been someone’s kitchen table once, she thought slightly hysterically, and now I’m going to perform surgery on it.

_Oh god, I’m going to cut his hand off._

“I need your belt.”

Normally this would have inspired a lewd remark but he handed it over without comment. Brienne tied it as tightly as she could a few inches up from his wrist… she thought that was right; you had it near the wound…what if it was wrong? What if it was supposed to go at the top? What if he died because she couldn’t remember where to put a bloody belt? Oh god, what if she got it wrong. All she had to go on were vague memories of her uncomfortable talk with the army medic months ago.

 Blood was oozing sluggishly from the bite mark… how many minutes had it been?

She needed to stop wasting time.

“I’m sorry, there’s no time for sedatives. You’re going to be in a lot of pain.”

Her words sounded detached, straight-forward and clinical to her own ears as she slid a tea towel under his wrist. It had smiling cats on it, proclaiming it was the ‘Puuuurrrfect time for tea’. The blood began to seep into it straight away.

She heard him take a deep breath and blow it out through his teeth, and then quietly he said,

“I trust you.”

Brienne couldn’t look at him, too afraid that she would lose what little composure she had. Instead she picked up the saw, taking a deep breath. She pressed the teeth of the saw into his skin, watching them bite in, leave indents.

Oh god, was she really going to do this?

She _had_ to do this.

She pushed down.

He tried his hardest to hold still, she could see he did. But on the second push he let out a scream so feral she started, nearly dropping the saw, convinced he’d turned.  But when she swung her head around his eyes were screwed tightly shut and he managed to gasp out “Keep going!” through gritted teeth.

She tried to hold him down while she was sawing, it was nearly impossible to do both at the same time. This needed two people at least. Gods, she wished… she wished Renly was still alive or that Loras and Margaery hadn’t left them. She wished Mrs Stark hadn’t elected to stay at the army base. She wished someone else, anyone else was here beside her.

Screams were being torn from his throat, echoing around the kitchen. God, she hoped they didn’t draw them here, what if they burst in the door while she was doing this. Or what if Locke and his gang were still around and heard…what if they came running like hyena’s to a kill…

Jaime thrashed about like a man possessed as she steadfastly drew the saw through sinew and bone, grinding back and forth.  Using her superior weight, she kept his arm partially still but once or twice his other one collided with her head leaving it ringing.

But she kept sawing.

There was blood everywhere.

If he turns I’m right here, he’s got an unrestricted shot at my neck she thought desperately. If this fails we’re both dead. If I had an ounce of sense I’d leave, have already left.

“Just a little more,” she croaked out, her hands slippery, covered in blood, fumbling her grip on the blade. Oh god, what if it got in her mouth? Did the virus spread that way? She didn’t remember.

He howled one final time and then crashed down onto the table, goinglimp, much to her relief.

But what if he wasn’t unconscious…what if he was dead? What if she’d killed him?

Her eyes were burning with tears and Brienne hated herself for crying when he was the one getting his hand sawn off. God, it was ridiculous that she was the one sobbing like a little girl.

His hand was hanging by a skin flap, looking almost like a movie prop or a Halloween decoration, something grotesque used to scare the children. With one last cut she got it free and hurled it across the floor, breathing hard.

There was so much blood, her front was soaked in it, and the towel that she was trying to stem the tide with had quickly turned from brown to red.  How much blood could a human body lose and survive?  Wasn’t the tourniquet supposed to stop at least some of this?

If he died… she’d be alone out here. And the first rule was, loners didn’t survive- too easy to get picked off, too easy to make stupid mistakes.

She fumbled the needle and dental floss out of the side pocket of her bag, fingers coating everything in red streaks. Her hands were shaking even more now than when she started, foiling her as she tried to thread the damn needle. Oh gods, this had seemed like such a remote possibility when she’d put together the supplies, when she’d talked to that old army medic Qyburn about it. Jaime Lannister in all his wisdom had laughed at her, told her it was pointless, if they were going to die they’d just die. Better a swift death than a lingering one, he’d said.

Maybe he’d hate her for saving him when he woke up. If he woke up.

Finally she managed to thread the floss through the eye of the needle.

 You were actually supposed to cauterise wounds like this, she was pretty sure, but there was no power, there hadn’t been any anywhere that didn’t have a private supply for months and she didn’t even have matches. This would have to do, was the only thing she could do. She’d just have to pray that it would be enough.

Brienne began to shakily stitch the skin of the stump together, pulling the needle through the glistening flesh, nearly losing it amid the blood. I always was useless at sewing, she thought slightly hysterically, watching as her large uneven stitches pulled his skin together. Whatever happened, even if he survived, she’d just maimed him for life.

Nothing in her life had prepared her for this.

When the outbreak happened she’d been a student, a phD student to be more precise, doing her research project on Female Agency in Arthurian Literature… the morning it had happened she’d been doing her ‘penance’ taking the first year undergrads for a seminar. Half of them hadn’t turned up, but it hadn’t seemed out of the ordinary to her, the seminar was first thing in the morning so the attendance figures were often pretty low.

Half-way through their discussion on the Mabinogion one of the students, a small quiet girl named Gilly had turned and used her teeth to rip out the throat of the boy sitting next to her. The image was so vivid in her mind, she could see the girl’s small white teeth clamping down on his neck and then with almost snake-like speed, ripping her head back, his blood running down her chin as she almost absently chewed on the strip of skin. The boy had looked…surprised more than anything, she recalled. Not afraid, not angry, just…surprised.

What had been his name? She couldn’t even remember now.

After that it was pretty much a blur of blood and running. Just _running_ as fast as she could.

For such a long time she’d just been running, barely managing to stay alive. Then the army camp had happened… then Catelyn Stark had taken her in, taken her to the army base where her son was stationed. Robb Stark has been begrudgingly welcoming, understandably reluctant to share supplies but Brienne had done her best to prove herself a worthy investment. She’d quickly learnt to shoot, to fight, and to survive. Had been taught by what remained of the Second Battalion of The Yorkshire Regiment. Discovered she was good at it…that she could out-climb, out-run, out-shoot most of the trained soldiers.

It hadn’t made her many friends. In fact aside from a few throw-away offers to share her bed which she stiffly declined,  Brienne found that once she’d proved she could be useful the regiment mainly left her alone, not really knowing what to make of her.

Then there had been Captain Jaime Lannister.  He’d been ‘rescued’ from no-man’s land, dragged back to the camp. He was a military man but he wasn’t army like the rest of them…he’d been an RAF pilot she learnt later. Half the men were all for killing him right there-apparently his father was an Army General and not a particularly well liked one. He was responsible for the orders that left the Second Battalion stranded out here, cut off in the quarantined zone without supplies.  So they’d all hated Jaime for his father and she’d hated him too… for his cocky attitude and his apparent amusement in relentlessly tormenting her.

As the outcasts of the group somehow he’d seemed to end up trailing her everywhere, getting in her way, always having to display his superior marksmanship. Always calling her derogatory nicknames and implying she wanted to sleep with him.

And when he’d offered to go into the city with her, to try and retrieve the Stark girls for their mother she’d assumed it was for selfish reasons but… he’d ended up saving her life.

He’d come back for her.

“If you die Lannister, I will never forgive you,” she whispered feeling idiotic, swiping at the tears and sweat on her face. He was breathing at least, chest moving in a steady rhythm. But where not even quarter of an hour ago had been a perfectly normal hand there was now a misshapen bloodied stump held tenuously together by her rough stitching.

Her stomach rolled suddenly, hot and acidic.

She lunged for the sink, feet slipping in the blood and almost fell, smacking her hand into the basin.

 Her throat burning as the water she’d drank earlier left her, splattering onto the stainless steel and then she dry heaved violently. Nothing there, how long since they’d last eaten?

She wanted to sink to the floor, to cry, to give up. But that wasn’t an option… she had to look after him.

Heaving him onto the sofa was easy enough, the muscles she’d developed over the past few months put to good use. Pushing a cushion behind his head she sat back on her heels, watching his motionless face. His good hand was lying lifelessly on top of his torso and she reached out, awkwardly taking it in her own blood-stained one.

“I never said thank you, for …everything.”

He remained silent and still on the sofa, his eyes closed. His hand remained limp in her grasp. With a sigh Brienne pushed herself to her feet, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the heels of her hands. She was still crying without even having realised it.

It was cold tonight… and weren’t you supposed to keep people warm if they had accidents?

Rifling through their cupboards felt like an invasion of privacy, even though she knew it was ridiculous. She could practically hear Jaime laughing at her- _God, Tarth_ he’d probably say _We’ve broken into their house and I’ve bled all over their table but you’re worried about borrowing a blanket?  You really are an idiot sometimes, you know?  Next you’ll be suggesting we find their zombie corpses and apologise._

The teasing would’ve been relentless and she’d have given absolutely anything to hear it right now.

She yanked the blanket out from the cupboard and a small teddy bear tumbled out as well. For a long moment she stared down at it, her heart hurting as she thought about what probably happened to the child that owned it.

No, if you thought about things like that it would destroy you.

Using her foot she edged the toy back in and firmly closed the door on it. Wished she could deal with all her problems in the same manner.

Later on when Brienne finally fell into a fitful sleep on the floor beside Jaime, curled up underneath her jacket, she dreamt of both of them running.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath, decisions have to be made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay it's at least 3 chapters now... why can't I write nice concise oneshots? >_

A sharp bang catapulted Brienne from her sleep.

Her first thought was that Jaime had turned while she was out and she quickly reached up with shaking hands, feeling about in the darkness till she found him. Touched the warm skin of his neck.  Relief shuddered through her when she felt his pulse…too fast and probably a little too weak but _there_.

He was alive for now.

From outside, the sounds came again… a body impacting the door followed by rough, animalistic grunts. Her hands scrabbled automatically for a weapon before remembering she didn’t have one. Since Locke and his band had relieved them of their guns all she had was the saw and there was no _way_ she’d ever get close enough to use that.

Nevertheless Brienne swept her hand across the darkened floor until her fingers closed on its cold handle, sticky with congealed blood. It made her skin crawl but she forced herself to tighten her grip.

This building wasn’t secure; she knew that, it was a ground level apartment that had just happened to be the nearest thing that looked like shelter when they’d ran. The door had been hastily bolted but she hadn’t checked for other ways in. She hadn’t had time before…everything.

A scraping sound from outside made a shiver crawl down her neck.

 _‘They don’t know we’re here,’_ she thought, trying her best to stay calm and rational _‘They don’t know we’re here they’re just randomly pushing at doors. They’re brainless, they can’t work things out…’_

All she could do was keep still in the pitch black, clutching the saw and praying they went away. She didn’t even have a torch. Of course turning on a light would’ve been pure folly, attracted more attention but…it would have been nice to have the option, to have the illusion of comfort at least.

Lying carefully back down on the floor Brienne listened, tense and alert, until the thumping noises stopped and all she could hear was her breathing and Jaime’s.

It was difficult to get back to sleep after that.

Instead she lay in the darkness, her mind taking her down paths that she determinedly avoided during the day- Catelyn Stark, her daughters, were they even still alive? What if this whole mission was for nothing? Her own father, god where was he now. Tarth was a tiny island, too small to appear on most maps… it could be cut off so he might be okay … he _had_ to be okay. She wondered if he was as worried about her as she was about him…what he’d say if he knew everything she’d been through lately…

The memory of Locke and his band rose up…making her stomach turn as she remembered what they’d tried to do to her…how she’d bitten that bastards ear nearly clean off when he’d tried to touch her, how Jaime had come back…

_Jaime._

Unbidden her mind presented her very clearly with the far more appealing image of the heated look on Jaime’s face when he’d walked in on her washing naked, last week.

The last one caused her to roll over and bury her face in the coat she was using as a pillow, the memory of the embarrassment making her want to scream. Some part of her wondered if she’d called him over, would he have taken her then? Part of her wished she had, part of her had been shocked to the core to see desire on his face. But a bigger part had rationalised it away, he probably hadn’t seen a woman in months, there hadn’t exactly been many at base. She could have been anyone.

Jaime Lannister was…a problem, she admittedly to herself, had been since they’d set out as a reluctant team. He was rude, impulsive, never seemed to quite take this with the seriousness that he should do. Of course he was also a crack-shot, an excellent marksman and according to him had the trophies to prove it. It didn’t seem to occur to him being able to aim well didn’t do much good when you were facings hordes that numbered in the hundreds. They weren’t going to let you go one on one, while you were aiming at the one in front of you, one behind you would be biting your neck. She’d told him he was going to get himself killed if he kept on like that and was now fervently hoping he wasn’t going to prove her right.

Because despite all of it…she respected him. Liked him even.

Which was an even bigger problem.

 Finally she fell back into her restless sleep, hoping she wouldn’t dream.

 

The next time Brienne woke up, it was nearly morning, the room flooded with thin grey pre-dawn light. She sat up, muscles protesting violently about the night spent on the hard floor.

 In the dim light she could just make out the huddled, unmoving form on the sofa.

“Are you alive?” she croaked, voice rough and scratchy.

He didn’t reply, didn’t even move. She could hear him breathing now, filling the silence with fast shallow gasps.

“Jaime?”

 In the grey morning light his face looked drawn and sick, the flickering pulse in his neck going faster than ever. She reached up hesitantly and touched his cheek, feeling it damp with sweat, running her fingers across the prickly hair of his beard. There was grey in it, matching the small lines around his eyes…for the first time she wondered how old he was, how much older than her.

It was surprising how little she really knew about Jaime Lannister.

She eased the blanket away from his arm.

There were little red tendrils winding their way up his skin,

Oh no. They didn’t look good. Something flickered in her memory… didn’t they mean it was infected? The arm looked swollen that for sure, reddened. Reaching out she placed her fingertips gingerly on his skin , feeling the heat coming off of it.

Panic threatened to overwhelm her then a fierce wave of self-hatred that surprised her in its intensity.

_I should’ve doused his wound in disinfectant, this is my fault …_

Brienne slumped down on the sofa next to him, which creaked with her added weight, and put her face in her hands. Her stomach lurched and her eyes prickled but after a few deep breaths she managed to get herself back under control.

Okay… she could fix this. It wasn’t hopeless.

She just needed drugs, something strong enough to kill the infection and fast.

The puddles of blood were drying into dark brown stains on the kitchen floor and she avoided stepping in them as best she could. Not that there was really much point, his blood was all over her anyway caked on her hands, under her fingernails, down the front of her clothes…everywhere.

She would have traded all of her worldly possessions for a hot shower right now.

In a fit of optimism Brienne tried the tap and was surprised when it guttered and spurted out a small amount of relatively clean water. Hastily she shoved her blood-covered hands underneath and scrubbed at them furiously using a dish cloth. When she’d finished the cloth was a mucky red colour and her hands looked at least a little cleaner.

Okay, okay no more stalling… she needed to decide what to do.

He’d need strong drugs, probably stronger than anything this family had in their medicine cabinet but she strode over to check anyway. There was the usual haphazard pile of store brand pain killers, allergy medication and plasters but nothing that was going to be particularly useful.

Absent-mindedly she chewed on her lip, trying to remember anything she might have known about infections. You could die from them couldn’t you? If they got really bad.

So either she could sit here, wait to see if he recovered or she could try and help him.

A futile search of the drawers turned up no key for the door. ‘ _Of course not_ ,’ thought Brienne shutting the last one a bit more forcefully than was strictly necessary, ‘ _that would be far too easy’_.  And Jaime was in no fit state to bolt it from the inside. Of course she could just leave him here, wedge the door shut from the outside and pray that was enough. But what if Locke’s gang found the building, her mind whispered, they’d surely be looking again by now and what if they found him alone like this? Would what they did to him be worse than what might happen if it was a zombie? If she left him alone, if anything found him while she was gone…then it had all been for nothing.

Oh _crap_ , she was going to have to take him with her wasn’t she?

Bolder than she would’ve been if he was awake Brienne took his remaining long-fingered hand resolutely in hers, trying not to notice how it stayed lifeless, and spoke firmly.

 “Okay Lannister, if you can hear me we’re going for a walk.”


	3. Chapter 3

Roughly one street later Brienne was thinking that this was maybe the stupidest idea she’d ever had. And that was taking into account a long history of rather ridiculous ideas one of the most recent of which was leaving the safety of the army camp and coming here in the first place. She wasn’t a small woman by any stretch of the imagination but Jaime Lannister was 6”1’ of pure dead weight in her arms and they were already beginning to protest rather strenuously.

 “I hate you,” she murmured under her breath as she hauled him along “I really do.”

He didn’t deign to respond to her professed hatred, merely lying deathly still in her arms. The furnace like heat of his skin was beginning to make her sweat despite the cold of the day and it worried her more than she’d care to admit. Vague recollections of high fevers causing brain damage tried to press their way to the front of her mind but she unceremoniously shoved them away.

After walking what felt like miles Brienne finally found a pharmacy that still looked somewhat intact, its dark windows seeming to stare back at her as she stood hesitant in front of them. She could see a figure reflected in the glass but almost didn’t recognise herself as the woman who was standing there. She was so pale, eyes sunken and haunted, jeans and shirt stained with blood.

You learnt early on the folly of going into darkened buildings.  But…

Jaime’s breathing was shorter now, coming in gasps. Sweat was slicking his hair to the side of his face. And he still hadn’t woken up.

Brienne grit her teeth and made her decision.

 

There was a balcony tucked down the side of the building on the second floor, wrought iron turned almost orange in places by rust. It looked like there had once been a ladder that led up to it but a quick search of the alley yielded nothing.

Brienne stood underneath it, looking up. It wasn’t that high, if she stood on her tip-toes she could reach up and grab the bottom bars with little difficulty. She tested her grip, making certain the iron wouldn’t come away in her hands if she pulled. It would do no one any good if she fell and broke her leg.

It seemed sturdy enough so she slung Jaime over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift and began to haul herself up. It wasn’t that easy and she nearly lost her grip on him at least once. If… _when_ he woke up he’d have some interesting bruises for her to explain.

A bitter wind was starting to blow, whistling around the buildings, causing a sudden shiver to wrack her body. Propping Jaime up against the wall she hesitated then shrugged off the coat she was wearing, wrapping it around him like a blanket. You were supposed to keep people with fevers warm weren’t you?  He didn’t even twitch as she carefully tucked the material round his shoulders.

What if he never woke up again, what if he was in coma, what would she _do_?

“I’m just going to get you some medication,” she said firmly, as if he could hear her “I won’t be long, you just… you wait here.”

Swinging herself down to the ground, Brienne cast a worried glance around the street. It was deathly quiet but that meant nothing, the zombies could be surprisingly stealthy at times. It was one of things that had surprised her about this whole thing; subconsciously she’d been expecting them to be like in the movies, ones that shuffled along, groaning constantly. But these ones…they were quiet. And fast.

Not to mention Locke and his group…they’d got the jump on them once already. And now she was alone. An easy target.

She hesitated in front of the pharmacy door for a moment, then turned instead to the hardware shop next door. There were plastic snowflakes littering the pavement, lying there forlornly amongst the shards of shattered glass from the broken front window. Probably part of a display about preparing for winter if the rather sad and lonesome snowman that was lying lopsided in one corner was anything to go by…it had been autumn when this all started, after-all.

Now winter was well and truly here.

Something caught her eye, half hidden under the fallen snowman.

Climbing up Brienne carefully avoided the shards of glass and reached across to edge it toward her. When it came free, she could see it was a snow shovel, obviously overlooked by whoever had looted the rest of the display. Good solid metal too- it felt weighty in her hands and she gave it an experimental swing as she stepped down. It might not be a decapitating blow but surely it would make anything attacking her think twice.

Cautiously Brienne eased the door to the pharmacy open, wincing at the tortured shriek the hinges made. It was pretty obvious she wasn’t the first person to break in here. Much like the hardware store this place looked ransacked, glass littering the floor, medications pulled from the shelves.

The shattered glass crunched and tinkled under her feet as she edged her way further into the room, scanning for movement.

There was a man behind the counter. Or…what had once been a man.

His throat had been cut, leaving great pools of blood on the countertop which had dried to a dense near black colour.  Flies were roaming in and out of his open mouth, buzzing irritably…something had taken one of his eyes, leaving a hollow blank socket to stare back at her. The other one was blue, that kind of pale icy blue that looked somehow underdone.

Carefully she edged around the corpse, trying not to breath in the putrefying stench.

The little paper bags that prescriptions came in still sat on the counter, stained a blotchy red now by the dead man’s blood. Someone’s printed prescription rested neatly on top she could still read it even despite the staining, recognised it as medication for a heart condition…they were the same pills her father took, one in the morning and one at night, regular as clockwork. He complained about it nearly every day, usually grumbled about taking them until she reminded him- she’d used to text him even when she was hundreds of miles away at school just to ask if he’d remembered to take them. What would happen to him without his prescriptions? Even if he remembered them, even if he’d got some stored they would run out eventually, no one would make them now….

No she couldn’t think about that, not right now. Her father would be alright, he _had_ to be.

Someone had to be untouched by all this chaos.

There was a sinking in her stomach as she looked round at the disarray in the backroom- someone had been here already, paper bags were ripped open, pills were trampled into the carpet, entire shelves had been pulled down in the haste to ransack the place.

There had to be _something_ that would help Jaime. Falling to her knees she began scrabbling for the few intact boxes, pulling out the information sheets and scanning them.

_Advagraf…no that was something to do with transplants…Simvastatin… no that was a cholesterol lowering thing…_

There was a small noise behind her, a shuffling and snorting.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

She whirled as it reached out toward her, clammy fingers just brushing her skin before she caught its neck with the edge of the shovel. It cried out, sounding almost like a wounded dog. Blood spurted from the wound and for a moment she fancied she saw confusion in his eyes. It was a young man, younger than her, with tangled black hair falling to his shoulders and several weeks’ worth of scruffy beard on his face. He looked like the kind of person who might have been in her fencing club at university or one of the undergrads who would have fallen asleep in the first year lectures.

He made a high keening sound, clawing at the metal of the snow shovel with blackened fingers and Brienne drew a shaky breath. No… it wasn’t human anymore. If she didn’t kill it then it was going to tear her limb from limb and… Jaime would die, shivering under a coat, abandoned.

Gritting her teeth, she pulled back and brought the shovel down again and again and _again._

Exhaustion shivered through her, arms aching. Her eyes were blurring with tears which she blinked fiercely back. No, the time for tears had been months ago, it would do no good if she broke down now. That boy whose body lay smashed and bloody at her feet had died weeks ago and it had not been her doing.

Her shoes were sticky with fresh blood, the bottoms of her jeans drenched in it. Her stomach rolled and she swallowed hard. The shovel clattered from her somehow numb fingers.

Her eyes blurred as she pulled out the remaining boxes. One of these had to be right… please…please she couldn’t have come this far for nothing…

She fumbled out the little leaflet, clumsy fingers leaving smears of blood. Cephalexin… used to treat infections- that would do. Unceremoniously she shoved packets into her pockets, grabbing her shovel and running for the exit.

 “I heard something!”

The familiarity of that voice pierced right through and she threw herself to the floor, pushing herself into the narrow space under the counter.

No, please _no_.

Locke’s men were here.

She’d only caught sight of them for a moment but it had been enough to notice they had guns now, they had _Jaime’_ s guns, they’d taken them from them when they’d been captured. Before, the first time, they’d only had knives and melee weapons and they’d still managed to surprise them. If they saw her… they might just shoot her…

_No, I can’t die… if I die, Jaime dies._

She steeled herself, peering cautiously over the top of the counter. There in the street was the man himself - _Locke_ \- side of his head swaddled in medical gauze, hiding the spot where she’d sunk her teeth into his face in a last desperate attempt to free herself.

That flush didn’t look healthy and his eyes were too bright. That probably meant they were here for the same reason she was- drugs to kill the infection. Her hand tightened on the small boxes in her pocket. There were barely enough here to get rid of Jaime’s infection, there was no way in hell she was letting them take them.

Locke strayed near to the alleyway and Brienne tensed.

_Touch him and I’ll kill you._

The thought surged through her, surprisingly fierce and bitter. If they went round the side she would, she would stand up, take her snow shovel and cave in Locke’s skull.  Not just for Jaime though, she wanted to do it…was almost willing him to turn down that alley.

_You tried to rape me, you bastard._

She remembered the feeling of his cold spider-like hands pushing their way inside her trousers, remember his fetid breath on her face as he tried to force her down onto her back, told her she was uglier than some the zombies but she was the first woman they’d seen in months, told her the men needed entertainment …remembered the give of the flesh as she’d bitten him, remembered the blood in her mouth.

“Doesn’t look like there’s much left!”

The door screeched open and footsteps made their way inside.

Brienne pushed herself further into the shadows under the counter, trying to fold her large frame completely into the small space. Boots marched into her line of view, muddied and battered. It wasn’t Locke, they were too big…Shagwell then maybe, he’d been as bad.

He kicked at some of the loose boxes, they skidded across the floor coming to a rest dangerously close to her hiding place.

“Fuckin’ waste of time there ain’t nothing here!”

No, the voice was too deep….not Shagwell then…. Rorge. She’d recognise his voice anywhere, he was the one who’d threatened to put his thumb through her eye if she screamed.

 “There could be more in the backroom, perhaps something to ease his pain or at least stop him prattling to us about it?”

Now that one _was_ Shagwell, she remembered his odd slightly high voice… he’d used to think he was funny, make terrible crude jokes. If they came round the counter, if they checked the back room…then there was no way they wouldn’t see her…

Her heartbeat was so loud in her own ears that she felt surprised they hadn’t heard it and reached down to drag her out. Shagwell by himself she might have been able to take, he was slight, slow to react. But Rorge was stronger, faster...together they might be able to take her down.

_No, no I can’t let them… Jaime needs me…_

 “How the fuck would you know anyway? You ain’t no bloody doctor.”

She heard hands impact on the countertop above her head and froze.

“Oh Christ, look at this it’s disgusting!”

So they’d noticed the bloated corpse of the shopkeeper… one of them was gagging now, making soft wet sounds like he was going to throw up.

“I ain’t goin’ back there, Locke wants it he can come and get it himself.”

They were hesitating, obviously not wanting to go climb around such a disgusting corpse to get access to the back room.

“It looks trashed anyway there’s probably nothing here, we’ll just have to go the next one. Maybe we’ll get lucky and his ear will fall off.”

Their braying laughter receded, leaving Brienne once again alone among the wreckage of the shop. She forced herself to stay still, taking deep shaky breaths.

Count to 100…

She made it to about fifty before she simply couldn’t stand it any longer.

Making her way warily to the door, she tightened her grip on the snow shovel, wincing at every crackle of the glass underfoot. The light was starting to fail, painting the street outside in shades of murky grey which made it impossible to see clearly but she didn’t think Locke and his cronies were still hanging around. Somewhere in the distance there were shouts but they were far enough away not to worry her too much.

_Jaime…_

She hurried down into the alley, eyes searching out where he was still huddled, unmoving on the little metal platform. Brienne let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding…some part of her had been convinced that she’d come back to find that Locke’s gang had discovered him, killed him, taken him. She grabbed the metal railing to swing herself up and then crawled her way over to him, gently pulling the coat away from his face to check for any change in his condition.

His eyes flickered open briefly. It seemed like they could barely focus on her but… he was alive, awake and alive and looking at her. She barely resisted the urge to break into a relieved smile.

Digging the half-empty water bottle out of the pocket of the coat, she fumbled about with shaking hands for the little packets of pills, crumpled from the death-grip she’d had on them.

 “Thought you’d finally got sick of me,” he muttered, barely audible “Left me here to die.”

That he was making fun of her again could only be a good sign.

“Here, these will help.”

Carefully Brienne popped the pills out of their plastic casing and lifted them to his mouth. Even parting his lips seemed to be a phenomenal effort to him but he managed it.

Putting the water to his lips, she tipped it until it filled his mouth, dribbling sloppily down his cheeks and neck.

“Swallow.” She commanded.

He obediently swallowed the water down, almost choking. She thumped him on the back until his breathing eased again.

His eyes slid closed and his head nodded again, as if he were falling asleep.

_No, no don’t sleep… don’t leave me alone again…_

“Don’t you die on me Lannister, not after all this.”

The words were half-angry, half- pleading.

“Jaime,” he murmured, eyelids flickering in another attempt to open. She brought her ear down to his mouth, trying to hear him above the howling winds.

“What?”

“ ‘s my name…Jaime.”

“I know that,” she replied, a little irritated, shivering as the wind picked up.

“Call me Jaime,” he instructed, words slurred and eyelids flickering

“Okay don’t die on me… Jaime.”

He grinned, a little too wide and foolishly. Obviously the drugs or the fever… probably the fever, the drugs hadn’t had time to kick in yet.

“Not gettin’ rid of me tha’ easy…”

His hot head slumped down to rest against her neck, his breathe tickling her skin. It was still cold, but not uncomfortable with Jaime’s warmth against her. Maybe he’d get better now…maybe it was too little, too late… maybe his heart would give out under the strain or he’d finally turn… hell maybe a horde was waiting round the next corner to rip them both to shreds.

Brienne carefully eased her arm up, wrapping it around his fever-warm shoulders and letting her cheek rest against the top of his head. She stretched out her legs in front of her  and sighed.

They would wait and see.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just... it's over...finally. This has taken me so long, it's been like pulling teeth!


End file.
